HubSpot Optimizes With $12 Million Financing Round

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Search engine optimization and online marketing software provider and consultancy HubSpot has raised $12 million in a Series B round led by Matrix Partners, the Cambridge, MA-based company announced.

Wade wrote about HubSpot in August, around the time it received $5 million from Cambridge’s General Catalyst Partners. As he described the firm, “the company’s Web-based software, which is designed for non-technical users, automates many of the headaches involved in ‘search engine optimization,’ or SEO, the soul-draining game of trying to beat out other businesses in searches related to your business’s products and bring customers your way.”

One of HubSpot’s tools, Website Grader, was profiled in TechCrunch a few months ago: “Just type in your Website address, and it will spit out a report detailing what you can do to boost your site’s SEO juice. It even gives you a grade,” TechCrunch noted. That grade is based on your site’s ranking compared to the 300,000-plus other sites HubSpot has analyzed. (Xconomy scores 97.2 out of 100 on the analysis. That was a tad behind TechCrunch, but we’re gaining fast!)

HubSpot founder and chief software architect Dharmesh Shah, who seed-funded the company with $500,000, notes on his blog that, “I’m not a big advocate of startup founders going out and trying to raise venture funding in the early stages.” However, he details the reasoning behind HubSpot’s venture rounds in a post called, “Insanity? Why a Bootstrap Entrepreneur Raised $17 Million in Venture Funding.”

Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. You can email him at bbuderi@xconomy.com. Follow @bbuderi